The Wasp House

We used to listen to its papery hum - Entrances, exits, the constant to-and-from Inhuman industry of it. Spun from its citizens' juices, it was home, Factory and cellular prison Designed and built in one athletic night, Or so it seemed to us discovering it In the viburnum. I had to have my daily peek. Spilled wasps Covered their colony, dripping like syrups All over it. Fierce, relentless, they brought A hazard to our gardened nature. Singular instinct seethed from the wasp house. Their traffic was all obsession, Imperial, devoted to frantic Commerce and necessity. An empty city swaying in the wind Marked winter and it was like watching A civilization diminish and fall. Air-archeology is what we work with, Sifting through what isn't there As if their secret's one we have to find, A loss that feels like a non-event, A life as weightless as their wings.